Never Angeline Nørth

I was maybe / the high harmony or the keys but you / were the chorus

Dear Juniper,

I had a dream this song
was a map of our neighborhood & each
beat stretched out
in wave-blocks & alleys. I was maybe
the high harmony or the keys but you
were the chorus & the whole thing stretched out in architectural
blue & white & this light could crush me in a
first-chilly-day-of-the-year kind of way, how the air
brings every gate & car into focus like the way
sparkling water tastes different from tap.

Give me your hand. Let's press our cheeks
to the cool dirt & hear the hoofbeats of whether
or not our jaws will break for good when
the resonance hits again. We are both
cameras taking pictures of the rough
of a whispered you are not dead yet.
If I feel this way once a week every day
for the rest of our lives I'll either melt in the
sun or consider it a life well-lived.
Let's sing something bloody & crying & repeat
the chorus until we can smell some pine sap already.

Love,
XXXXXXX

Never Angeline Nørth is a poet and librarian living in Chicago. She is author of the forthcoming books Wolf Doctors (Artifice Books, March 2014) and Sara or the Existence of Fire
(Horse Less Press, Fall 2014) as well as maybe nine chapbooks. Recent publications include Gulf Coast, Guernica, Denver Quarterly, Dusie and
Columbia Poetry Review.